News and reviews for the discerning manga fan
Welcome to Shojo Manga Week! For the next seven days, I’ll be shining the spotlight on a variety of shojo titles, new and old, while counting down my all-time favorite series. I admit that I’ve had a long and ambivalent relationship with shojo; though I love the idea of female creators writing stories for female [...]
On Saturday, June 26th, Brigid Alverson, Robin Brenner, Martha Cornog, and I gave a presentation at the American Library Association’s annual conference called “The Best Manga You’re Not Reading.” The goal of our talk was to remind librarians about all the weird, wonderful, and diverse offerings for older teens and adults. Recommendations ran the gamut [...]
The characters in Solanin are suffering from what I call a “pre-life crisis”—that moment in your twenties when you realize that it’s time to join the world of adult responsibility, but you aren’t quite ready to abandon dreams of indie-rock stardom, literary genius, or artistic greatness. From a dramatic standpoint, the pre-life crisis doesn’t make [...]
Reading The Times of Botchan reminded me of watching Alexander Sakurov’s cryptic 2002 film Russian Ark. Both employ a similar gambit: a literary figure from the country’s past wanders through a landscape populated by real people who played pivotal roles in its modernization. In Russian Ark, the author/protagonist role is filled by the Marquis de [...]
This month’s third and final “second takes” column focuses on three manga that have garnered good reviews here and elsewhere: Yun Kouga’s Crown of Love (VIZ), a romantic drama about teen idols; Kaoru Tada’s Itazura na Kiss (DMP), a comedy documenting a ditzy girl’s quest to bag the class genius; and Natsume’s Book of Friends [...]
Kingyo Used Books starts from a simple premise: an eccentric group of people run a second-hand bookstore in an out-of-the-way location. Various customers stumble upon the shop — usually by accident — and, in the process of browsing, find a manga that helps them reconnect with a part of themselves that’s been suppressed, whether it [...]
Oh, Natsume Ono, I just can’t quit you! I was not wild about not simple, but try as I might, I couldn’t dismiss you as just another overrated indie artist. I couldn’t shake the memory of how I felt when I read the first few chapters of House of Five Leaves – that incredible sensation [...]
Call me a cynic, but I’ve never been big on Valentine’s Day. In theory, I’m not opposed to the idea; I’m a sucker for chocolates, and relish an excuse to bake red velvet cupcakes and watch The Philadelphia Story or How to Steal a Million for the umpteenth time. In practice, however, the month-long build-up [...]
This week’s column examines two recent releases: Yana Taboso’s cosplay-friendly, fan-favorite Black Butler (Yen Press), currently the bestselling manga in the US, and Yun Kouga’s pop soap opera Crown of Love (VIZ). Though I can’t say either were high on my “most anticipated of 2010″ list, I was pleasantly surprised to discover just how entertaining [...]
In The Idea of History, author R. G. Collingwood argues that nineteenth-century historians viewed their task in a different spirit than their predecessors. While previous generations of scholars treated history as a simple chain of events, the Romantics wanted to recreate the past through their writings. The Romantic historian, Collingwood explained, “entered sympathetically into the [...]
I’m not a big fan of squirm-inducing comedies like The Office; it’s hard to root for a loser who … [Read More...]
Are you an adult reader new to manga? Or a librarian who's looking to add more graphic novels to … [Read More...]
Back in the 1990s, Matt Thorn labored hard to make Keiko Nishi a household name among American manga … [Read More...]
Between the Manga Movable Feast and end-of-the-semester duties, I've fallen hopelessly behind in my … [Read More...]
Below is a list of helpful English-language web resources about manga and manhwa. I update this page on a regular basis, so … [Read More...]
Since joining the Good Comics for Kids team in 2008, I've reviewed a variety of comics, graphic novels, and manga for younger … [Read More...]
Though Vertical has published two series by Keiko Takemiya, the Magnificent 49ers' work remains largely unavailable in … [Read More...]
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